Spain floods claim lives of British couple after desperate search by volunteers

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A missing British couple have tragically been found dead in Spain after floods hit the nation.

On November 3, Mayor Andoni Leon confirmed the sad news as local volunteers found the bodies of the elderly couple in an area near Pedralba - a small town a 45-minute drive north-west of the east coast city of Valencia - where they lived.

The mayor said they also recovered the remains of a Spanish man themselves following a town hall-led attempt to locate those unaccounted for following Tuesday’s killer floods because no outside help had yet arrived.

Three Brits have been confirmed dead so far from the floods with the total death toll at 213 - and the numbers are expected to rise further. Last week a 71-year-old Brit also died in hospital after being rescued by boat from his flooded home on the outskirts of Alhaurin de la Torre near Malaga.

Regional president Juanma Moreno confirmed his nationality as he visited one of the areas near Malaga that was worst affected by flooding. The unnamed man was rescued last Tuesday by firefighters after his partner alerted the authorities because he was having an apparent heart attack and suffering from hypothermia.

He was initially taken to nearby Guadalhorce Hospital and stabilised before being transferred to a hospital in Malaga, where he died in the early hours of Wednesday morning after suffering multiple organ failure. The bodies of the British couple are understood to have been found in what was left of their home.

The grim discovery was made on Saturday, but the local mayor did not confirm their nationalities until yesterday. The Spaniard who died has been named locally as 44-year-old Francisco Quesada. His neighbour Ruth Rodriguez, who found him after searching for him with family and friends, said she had started looking after he disappeared shortly after sending her videos of the flooded River Turia near his home.

She told the local press, " No one from any of the security forces found him; it was us removing mud and debris.” Pedralba mayor Mr Leon added, “We haven’t received any help. Thanks to all the volunteers that are arriving, we are becoming almost auto-sufficient.” The first members of the Military Emergencies Unit UME, a branch of the Spanish Armed Forces, reached the municipality of around 3,000 inhabitants yesterday afternoon shortly after he voiced his concerns.

He said the town was still without drinking water and “one or two more people were still missing.” Spanish rescue teams have recently said they fear mass graves await them in Valencia's underground car parks, from which they have started to pump standing water. Officials have said they fear the number of dead could jump “by the hundreds” as they remove the water.

Scuba teams have been deployed to the submerged Bonaire Shopping Centre near Valencia over the weekend, with pictures showing the entrance completely blocked by deep, mud-brown waters. The divers have discovered hundreds of unsearched vehicles that they fear could harbour legions of dead bodies.

A source said over the weekend that people who tried to escape the floods in their cars may have become trapped in the murky depths as the water rushed inside.

They said: "The most shocking scene is that of the escalators disappearing and sinking into the muddy pool the Bonaire underground car park has become. The brown water is still there. For sure, there are dozens of unusable vehicles floating around. It remains to be seen whether there are also victims who were trapped, because in their attempts to escape many people tried to leave by taking their vehicles."

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